Intensification of Large-Scale Stretching of Atmospheric Pollutant
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DECEMBER 2017 H A S Z P R A 4229 Intensification of Large-Scale Stretching of Atmospheric Pollutant Clouds due to Climate Change TÍMEA HASZPRA Institute for Theoretical Physics, and MTA-ELTE Theoretical Physics Research Group, Eotv€ os€ Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary (Manuscript received 25 April 2017, in final form 28 September 2017) ABSTRACT The aim of the paper is to investigate the question of how a changing climate influences the spreading of pollutants on continental and global scales. For characterizing the spreading, a measure of chaotic systems, called topological entropy, is used. This quantity describes the exponential stretching of pollutant clouds and, therefore, is related to the predictability and the complexity of the structure of a pollutant cloud. For the dispersion simulations the ERA-Interim database is used from 1979 to 2015. The simulations demonstrate that during this period the mean topological entropy slightly increases: the length of an initially line-like pollutant cloud advected for 10 (30) days in the atmosphere becomes 20%–65% (200%–400%) longer by the 2010s than in the 1980s. The mean topological entropy is found to be strongly correlated with the mean of the absolute value of the relative vorticity and only weakly linked to the mean temperature. 1. Introduction in which pollutants rise high intheatmosphereandmayhave continental and global impacts are particularly important. One of the most challenging problems of the present Although there are studies dealing with the connection day is the assessment of the consequences of climate between climate change and air quality (e.g., Bytnerowicz change, several of which are not yet explored satisfac- et al. 2007; Kinney 2008), these mainly focus on regional torily. To the best of our knowledge, one aspect that has or local scales or the changes in pollutant concentration, not been investigated yet is the impact of climate change rather than the transport itself (Ma et al. 2004; Jacob and on the large-scale atmospheric transport processes— Winner 2009; Fang et al. 2011). Thus, the purpose of this that is, the investigation of the change in the charac- teristics of the spreading (e.g., speed and predictability, research is to fill the gap and carry out a detailed analysis or the structure) of pollutant clouds. to reveal whether the intensity of the large-scale transport Recently, two major events drew attention to the po- processes is altered or not by the changing climate. In tentially important consequences of large-scale atmo- this paper, we focus on the past decades and investigate spheric transport: the ash plumes of the Eyjafjallajökull the instrumentally observed climate change (IPCC 2013) volcano’s eruption in 2010, which resulted in airspace for the time period from 1979 to present. With the help of closures over Europe (e.g., Flentje et al. 2010), and the dispersion simulations based on atmospheric reanalysis radioactive material released during the accident of the data we are able to investigate a large number of events Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which caused distributed uniformly in time and space, so that they are measurable effects far away from the source, even in suitable for a statistical analysis to investigate whether the the United States and Europe (e.g., Lujaniene_ et al. characteristics of atmospheric spreading are altered or 2012; MacMullin et al. 2012; Mészáros et al. 2016). not on a detectable level in the past 37 yr. Therefore, the investigation and modeling of the events In the case of large-scale atmospheric dispersion, in which the characteristic time scale is on the order of 10 days, the typical horizontal distance of the transport Denotes content that is immediately available upon publica- of pollutants by the mean wind is on the order of tion as open access. 1000 km. Meanwhile, for the horizontal turbulent dif- fusion the characteristic length scale is about 3–30 km Corresponding author:Tímea Haszpra, [email protected] (Haszpra and Tél 2013b). Therefore, as a first approximation, DOI: 10.1175/JAS-D-17-0133.1 Ó 2017 American Meteorological Society. For information regarding reuse of this content and general copyright information, consult the AMS Copyright Policy (www.ametsoc.org/PUBSReuseLicenses). Unauthenticated | Downloaded 09/26/21 02:18 PM UTC 4230 JOURNAL OF THE ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VOLUME 74 FIG. 1. (left) Advection image of a 38-long line segment (n0 5 1000 particles, initiated at 0000 UTC 1 Dec 2015 at 408N, 908E at 500 hPa) on the tenth day after the emission. Color bar indicates the pressure coordinate (hPa) of the particles. The initial position of the line segment is marked by the green line surrounded by the black square. (right) The length of the filament in time [solid line, determined as in Eq. (4)] and the fitted exponential function (dashed 2 line) with exponent h 5 0.81 day 1. the stochastic part of the dispersion, that is, the effect of pollutants (Haszpra and Tél 2013b). A pollutant cloud turbulent diffusion, can be neglected in the calculation typically spreads in the atmosphere in a folded, fila- of the transport of the pollutants. In this study, we consider mentary structure as illustrated by Fig. 1. The figure the pollutant to be an inert gas. Because most of the time shows the advection pattern of a pollutant cloud that the pollutants are transported in the free atmosphere, de- consists of a large number of tracer particles, which position processes do not have a significant role. Hence, the form a 38-long line segment on the 500-hPa level at the transport of the pollutant is determined only by the advec- beginning of the simulation (see the green line within tion process, which is deterministic. In the particle-tracking the black square). One can see that within 10 days the method applied in this study, the motion of a particle is de- filament becomes highly stretched and folded as a result scribed by three time-dependent, deterministic ordinary of the shearing and mixing effects of the atmospheric differential equations. In a dynamical system described by flow and covers a large part of the hemisphere. It is such a set of equations, chaotic behavior can occur; that is, worth noting that the effects of two cyclones are no- the dynamics can be sensitive to the initial conditions, making ticeable in the lower-left part of the left panel. These it unpredictable for an extended time (Ottino 1989; Ott 2002). cyclones force the pollutant particles to converge toward To analyze the impact of a changing climate on the their centers by forming spirals and lift the particles high large-scale transport processes, we use a measure of (marked by dark blue) in the atmosphere. chaos called the topological entropy (Newhouse and If the pollutant clouds are initialized as line segments, Pignataro 1993; Ott 2002; Tél and Gruiz 2006). In the the length L of the filaments typically increases expo- context of large-scale transport, topological entropy nentially over time t: describes the stretching rate of the pollutant clouds. As a measure of folding, it also describes the complexity L ; exp(ht), (1) of the structure of the pollutant cloud and the intensity and predictability of the spreading of the pollutant. As where the exponent h denotes the topological entropy, a rule of thumb, a larger value of the topological entropy that is, the stretching rate. This process is illustrated by implies the coverage of a larger geographical area by the right panel of Fig. 1, in which the fitted exponential Unauthenticated | Downloaded 09/26/21 02:18 PM UTC DECEMBER 2017 H A S Z P R A 4231 function from day 2 to day 10 is marked by the dashed raindrops and aerosol particles. RePLaT was tested by line. The length of the filament increases by a factor of simulating the dispersion of volcanic ash from volcanic about 3000 during the investigated time period. Note eruptions such as the ones of Eyjafjallajökull and Mount that a line segment cannot split up into two or more Merapi (Haszpra and Tél2011, 2013a) and by simulating branches, because it would require a wind vector that the dispersion and deposition of the radioactive particles points in more than one direction at some location. As a released during the accident of the Fukushima Daiichi consequence, a line segment remains a line segment nuclear power plant (Haszpra and Tél2016). In the for- forever, and the determination of the full (folded) length mer studies reasonable agreement was found between the is unambiguous. For more details on the topological distribution of volcanic ash in the simulation and that entropy, see, for example, Thiffeault (2010); Budisic´ and indicated by satellite measurements. In the case of the Thiffeault (2015), and Haszpra and Tél (2013b) in the Fukushima Daiichi accident the arrival times of the pol- atmospheric context. lution at different locations coincided with the observa- At the mid- and high latitudes, the characteristic values tion, and the simulations were able to reproduce the 2 of h are found to be 0.6–0.8 day 1, which indicates a measured concentrations of the noble gas 133Xe with ac- stretching of the filaments by a factor of 400–3000 within ceptable accuracy. 10 days. The stretching rate of pollutant clouds is de- In this paper, the calculation of the particle trajecto- pendent on the season (Haszpra and Tél2013b). There- ries are carried out with the simplest configuration, in fore, it is plausible to assume that it also depends on the which only advection is considered. In the simulations, changing state of the climate. As the stretching rate is the ideal tracers, corresponding to inert gases or infinitesi- exponent that describes the exponential growth, small mally small air parcels, are tracked.